Weathersbee: Memphis' kids can't thrive while their clothes are being put out on the curb

Furniture and clothing from an apparent eviction sit along a curb on a street in the Whitehaven area. Memphis tops the nation in evictions, and the impact on children is brutal.(Photo: Tonyaa Weathersbee/The Commercial Appeal)

Not long ago, Tara Seay tried to help her 10-year-old daughter grasp why her classmate hadn’t been around lately.

When they drove by the child's house, things that should have been inside were outside.

"Everything was thrown out, just tossed out in the yard," said Seay, director of Universal Parenting Place at Christ Community Health in Raleigh.

"My daughter said: ‘Oh, she must have moved. I haven’t seen her at school.’ I said: ‘It doesn’t look like they moved. But it looks like they had some trouble.’

“So, my baby, at that point in her life, had to see that. She didn’t know anything about evictions. But I knew. And it just broke my heart.”

If Seay had a hard time explaining that scene to her child, imagine how hard it was for the parents who experienced it to explain it to theirs.

Then imagine the angst that consumes around 80 to 90 percent of the 200 or so parents who seek therapy and other services at the Raleigh parenting place. Many of them work two or three jobs, but still struggle to pay the rent, and still worry whether they’ll wind up seeing their furniture and clothes on a curb, Seay said.

A compounding situation

It’s easy to see where that fear comes from.

Memphis is the nation’s second-poorest large metro area, so it’s no surprise that many people might have trouble affording the rent. It also tops the nation’s large cities when it comes to evictions.

But a situation exists that compounds the problem for many poor Memphians. According to an investigation by The Washington Post, Cerberus Capital Management, a New York private equity firm, is the largest owner of single-family homes here, and the company that manages its rental properties, FirstKey, files for evictions at double the rate of other property management companies.

Raleigh, in fact, is one of the areas where, according to a Post map, is rife with FirstKey evictions.

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Tara Seay, director of Universal Parenting Place at Community Health in Raleigh, talks about the time she had to explain an eviction to her 10-year-old daughter. Many of the parents who come to the center live with fears of not being able to come up with rent.(Photo: Tonyaa Weathersbee/The Commercial Appeal)

That means if a crisis forces families to fall behind on their rent, they can wind up in eviction court — and inundated with court fees and late fees that they won’t be able to pay.

Which means they’ll be out on the street. Along with their children. Children like Seay’s daughter’s classmate.

Children who will become used to finding places to crash, and not to live.

'It shakes their stability'

“When you have a parent facing eviction, it creates another barrier for children,” Seay said. “It shakes their stability. Sometimes the parents aren’t very forthcoming about what happened, and all the children know is that they are moving to another place …

“Also, when they evict families, they put everything out in the front yard, and when you drive by you can tell who has been evicted … then their [evicted students] classmates can see it, walking to middle school and to high school, can see it … think about the kids who will subject them to teasing.”

Seay continued.

“If they move to a worse neighborhood, it may change the kind of friends they have, and it may change the culture they’re in,” she said. "Then, there’s the body stress. If they notice that mom was acting in a certain way, or that she was packing [suitcases], or that people were always packing, they begin to associate normal things like packing a suitcase with trauma.

“If they see mom packing, they’re nervous.”

Who really ends up paying for evictions?

Of course, some tenants are deadbeats who have figured out how to game the system to stay at a place free for months until the eviction process kicks in. This column is not about them.

“If you’re not in a stable environment, it’s tough to learn,” said Cardell Orrin, director of Stand For Children Memphis. “But we have to begin to deal with what’s at the root of the problem …

“Think of how successful these kids could be if we could remove these barriers.”

He’s right.

Being evicted or threatened with eviction makes it tough to focus in school, or to finish school, or to begin to think about a future beyond day-to-day survival. It puts children like Seay’s daughter’s’ classmate at risk of joining the disconnected youths who cost taxpayers around $13,900 apiece each year in government services.

Which means that while their parents may pay a steep cost for not being able to pay the rent, society winds up paying as well.

And an absentee landlord who exploits Memphis’ most vulnerable citizens is likely adding to that tab.